05 December 2012 2:05 PM

A Moth-eaten rag on a Worm-eaten Pole? or Something Important?

As a child I used to love collecting things, mostly coins, but also sets. Along with pennies from almost every year since 1860, some polished to smoothness, others still clearly legible (‘Victoria, Deo Gratia, Reg. Omn. Brit., Ind. Imp. Fid. Def.’ , I seem to recall they said, and I knew what it meant) , I possessed silver threepenny bits, many farthings and a few enormous coppers from the days of George III, plus some French Third Republic coppers and various coinages from the Channel Islands, where a penny mysteriously became ‘Eight Doubles’ pronounced Doobles. I am convinced that I had an Edward VIII threepence (not silver but that yellowy cupro-nickel) but I may now be imagining it. I certainly don’t have it now, and am not even sure that any coins were struck with his name and superscription upon them. That brief King had left very few solid traces, though his monogram, unusually, was to be found over the Post Office at Havant and on a pillar box in Dunfermline, two places where I lived during my childhood. It also used to be visible over the Post Office at Wallingford, near Oxford, but I am not sure if it still survives there.

I also had a fine assembly of those enjoyable little volumes called ‘Observer’s Books’ as far as I know, nothing to do with the great liberal newspaper that once bore that name ( I believe another, rather different publication carries it now). They had a particularly enjoyable smell, thanks to the shiny paper they used for the illustrated pages, which for years I associated with Christmas. I am sure if I smelt it again now I should know it instantly.

I have lost most of them (only the astonishing one dealing with British railway locomotives seems to have survived the years – how shocking it is to see all these steam-powered monsters described as if they are normal and everyday, rather than semi-mythical museum pieces).

And one of the missing is ‘The Observer’s Book of Flags’. It would be wholly obsolete now, thanks to the incessant creation of new nations in the past half-century, and the habit of many old nations of acquiring new flags.

What sticks in my memory (apart from a helpful little essay on such terms as ‘hoist’ and ‘fly’ and on that useful invention, the Inglefield Clip) is a brief verse that was, I think, on the title page, about a moth-eaten rag on a worm-eaten pole. Unable to remember all of it, I found it on the Internet, attributed to Sir Edward Hamley, on seeing some old colours of the 43rd Monmouth Light Infantry, laid up in Monmouth Church:

‘A moth-eaten flag on a worm-eaten pole, it does not look likely to stir a man’s soul. Tis the deeds that were done ‘neath the moth-eaten rag, when the pole was a staff and the rag was a flag’.

Well, exactly. And some thought of this kind does come to mind when I see those ancient battle-flags, now so old they are practically transparent, hanging in the silence of an old parish church.

No such silence was to be found this week outside Belfast’s majestic Victorian (designed) and Edwardian (built) City Hall which, as it happens, I visited only a few weeks ago while on a visit to that interesting and enjoyable city. Instead a very angry and rather nasty mob burst into the courtyard and clashed with police.

I wish they hadn’t. No cause is helped by angry mobs. But it does show how much emotion a flag can stir. It’s not just a piece of cloth.

What had the City Council done? It had voted quite decisively to end the practice, continuous since 1906, of flying the Union Flag each day from above its neo-classical portico. Instead, it will now be flown on just 17 days of the year, paradoxically including St Patrick’s Day. The official excuse is of course that such matters are sensitive in that part of the world, and that one must try to be inoffensive and inclusive. It’s an interesting place whose national flag is deemed to offensive to fly from official buildings for most of the year. But then, Northern Ireland *is* an interesting place.

Actually, I can easily see the logic of this. That is because , since 1998, I have recognised the unlovely, enormous but largely ignored fact that Northern Ireland is on its way out of the United Kingdom, and into the Irish Republic. No sense getting angry now about a defeat which has already happened, and which the people fo northern Ireland were bamboozled into endorsing in a referendum which, like all such votes, was easily rigged to produce the result the establishment wanted ( and would have been held again if it hadn’t).

Only another referendum , which can be called at any time, stands in the way of this change. The people of the province are all aware of this, as are most citizens of the Irish Republic ( or ‘Ireland’ as it prefers to be known) even if almost nobody in mainland Britain knows or cares. That’s their mistake, as we shall see. It’s important.

Northern Ireland’s police force, as we discussed here the other day, has on its cap badges a sort of dolly mixture of symbols, none of them supreme, symbolising the fact that nobody is really in charge, or has a monopoly of power or force. Even the crown in the badge is not the actual Crown of St Edward, which is the symbol of law, majesty and state power in England and its former dominions (look at the police badges in Canada, Australia and New Zealand) .

By the way, observant people will have noticed that a similar but different problem in Scotland has been resolved for now by using the Crown of Scotland, instead of the Crown of St Edward. I believe this appears on Scottish police badges, the newer Scottish pillar boxes (Some Scots objected to Queen Elizabeth the Second’s E II R monogram on these, because she is not the second Queen Elizabeth of Scotland, but the first) and (sometimes, or in the past) on Scottish ambulances, which bear the logo of the Scottish NHS (of what ‘nation’ is the Scottish NHS the National Health Service?). Also, Scotland has its own flag, the Saltire or St Andrew’s Cross, which can be flown alongside the Union Flag, and in a sort of competition with it. It is also part of the Union Flag itself, and represented in it. Northern Ireland’s flag or common symbol is the old red hand of Ulster, which is nowadays very much associated with Unionism.

Ireland is also represented in the Union Flag, which contains St Patrick’s Cross, But the flag of Ireland, these days, is the secular tricolour, which was (I believe) designed in France on the pattern of its French revolutionary equivalent, and didn’t become popular until it was raised over the Dublin Post Office at the Easter Rising of 1916.

All this change threatens another awkward problem for the British politicians who have been dismantling the country behind our backs over the last 20 years or so. If Northern Ireland leaves the Union (more likely, in my view, than the much-discussed Scottish departure) , then the Royal Arms and Royal Standard will have to abandon the Harp, which forms such an important part of them. And the Union Flag will have to be stripped of St Patrick’s Cross, making it quite different. People won’t like it when it happens, I suspect.

But such things do happen. They may well be on their way.

The row over Belfast City Hall, which was flying our nation’s flag when I last saw it a few weeks ago, has drawn attention to the fact that Northern Ireland Government buildings long ago (in fact soon after the surrender to the IRA concluded at Easter 1998) abandoned daily displays of the Union Flag. Belfast City Hall, being in the centre of the Province’s biggest city, may have offered misleading reassurance to Unionists that things hadn’t changed all that much. The Stormont government buildings are some miles way, in a suburban setting which most visitors to Belfast will never see, and which few residents will visit either.

You may ask what will fly instead. As far as I can discover, nothing will. On the 348 or so days of the year not set aside for nostalgic displays of the Union Flag, the flagstaff will be bare, as it is at Stormont.

Northern Ireland, you see, is not and never can be a nation in itself. And because we never fully made it part of Britain back in 1922, we postponed till the 21st century the problems that we have coming.

Perhaps they could fly a large question mark in future. The flag that would, alas, most accurately assert the true state of sovereignty over Belfast and the six counties of Northern Ireland would be the EU standard, with its 12 mysterious yellow stars representing who knows what?

I suspect that Brussels’s blue and yellow banner will be the flag and badge of the ‘peacekeepers’ or perhaps gendarmes who, 30 years from now, will be dealing with protestors on the Shankill Road in Belfast, who refuse to accept Dublin rule and have (once again) been infringing the law by displaying the banned Union Flag, long ago forgotten and abandoned by the truncated, multicultural English Republic across the sea.

For the defeat of Unionism throughout the British isles will turn out to be the heralds of the end of the country we grew up in in all its territory. Northern Ireland’s Unionists are like pit canaries, the first to smell defeat.

I’ll be told (I often am) that the Roman Catholics of Northern Ireland currently have no desire to unify with the South. That may well be so. Who’d have thought that the Unionists would ever lose their majority on Belfast City Council? But they did. Lots of things can change, including the state of the UK economy and of the Irish and EU economies, and I’m still expecting a 32-county Ireland in my lifetime. 2016, centenary of the Easter Rising, may now be too soon because of the Eurozone collapse. But 1922, centenary of the Free State, looks a possibility.

There may be tumult and shouting from time to time, but the Abolition of Britain has already happened, long ago. We’re now in the interval between the fact, and everyone realising that it is a fact.

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@ Elaine | 10 December 2012 at 04:42 PM

"....doesn't make it right for Britain to hold onto Northern Ireland."

Britain is not 'holding on' to Northern Ireland, just as it is not 'holding on' to the Falkland Islands. The people of both Northern Ireland and the Falklands want to be British. Northern Ireland is not an occupied territory in the manner of, say, the West bank in which British settlements have been illegally planted. The people of Northern Ireland (overwhelmingly I suppose I should say) want to 'hold on' to their land and they want to be British.

Thank you for the information on Guam. We can learn new things everyday, but it still wasn't relevant to this discussion. Because if it's wrong for the USA to hold onto the territory of Guam that doesn't make it right for Britain to hold onto Northern Ireland. It was perfectly acceptable for Mark to express an opinion on this especially given that he shared no opinion on the issue of Guam.

And the very fact that Mark is reading Peter Hitchens writings makes it likely that he is fairly well read and aware of things outside the US. As Mr. Hitchens has said on a number of occasions, his presence in the US is very small. So, he could be well read without having traveled outside the US.

But I wonder if you've ever stopped to consider why Americans don't bother to get a passport. I can easily think of a number of reasons. First of all we never used to need a passport to travel to Canada and Mexico. It's only been in the last five years that it has been required. And a second very big thing is geography. It's 1700 miles from Indiana to Mexico.(and even further if you live on the east coast) But it's only 700 miles from London to Spain. And why even bother going to Mexico for a beach vacation when you can go down to Florida or South Carolina? For that matter, if you want a ski vacation there's the Rocky Mountains. You want to see the desert, go to the southwest. Amazing forests? the northwest. There are five national parks right here in Utah that have landscapes unlike anyplace else on earth. I've lived here most of my life and I've never seen much of the east or south because I've always lived in the midwest or west.
There is so much to do and see right here and even seeing what's here can take a lifetime because it's not close. It's a 3-4 day drive from one coast to the other.
And I don't know how much vacation time most British people get but we don't get the one month vacations that we hear about the Australians or Norwegians getting. Most people are lucky to get 2 weeks.

You are very lucky to be in close proximity to many other different countries and because of your close proximity it is understandable that you would be more aware of other places and people. We are isolated by our geography, but it's still no excuse for Americans to not bother to try and learn about the world.

"oh, dear" perhaps in my snootiness (a rather English state of affairs I would admit) I can point you in the direction of the following statement by a member of the Guam Legislature;

"The speaker of the Guam Legislature has called on the UN to dispatch a special mission to help the native Chamorros gain self-determination.

In her speech Dr Judih Won Pat accused the US of Genocide and as the perpetrators of ‘the tyranny of colonisation’.

"For the past 50 years the Chamoru people, and other inhabitants of Guam, continue to bear witness to economic exploitation and political oppression by the incumbent administering power," she said.

Won Pat also said for about 500 years, "the Chamoru people endured ethnic and cultural genocide, forced labor, religious, and political oppression by three different sovereign nations".

"Self-determination is, after all, a fundamental inalienable right affirmed by the United Nations Charter. Assist the CHamoru people in bringing an end to the practice of colonialism in order that we may peaceably assemble and determine the political, economic, social, and cultural future of our people."

"May this committee rise and cast light upon those nation states that willfully violate the foundational principles of this great assembly for it is no longer proper to recognize the abused and not the abuser," Won Pat stated in her speech to the UN."

Now I accept fully that this is not a demonstration of 'unrest, uprisings or terrorism' but does that make their case any less valid than the IRA for example?

Stephen,
Your comments, as well as those of Mr. Hitchens, made me think about my own situation. One of my ancestors came to this country almost 400 years ago as an indentured servant. (it appears that he came from Scotland) That's a long time ago. Even the most recent immigrants in my family history came here over 100 years ago; one great grandfather from England and another set of great grandparents from Norway. How am I anything but American? If I did "go back" to where my ancestors came from where would I go? I would have to choose between England, Scotland, Norway, Denmark, Germany and Ireland (there was someone in there from Ireland)
I respect the feelings of M.O'C (that's quite a name, which I hope you don't mind that I abbreviate. I don't know how you'd say it but it probably sounds really nice)
but Stephen and Mr. Hitchens make some valid points.

By the way, Stephen, I grew up in Ohio but I knew quite a few people there from West Virginia since Ohio is directly north. It seems that they would come to Ohio for the job opportunities. I once went with them to their Clogging (dance) sessions, which I think also came from Irish dancing. I couldn't keep up but it was fun to watch them. And I have heard of this distinct group called "Scotch-Irish" because the Lowry that I descend from came from Scotland but I think would have been part of this group. He just came to the Americas earlier ( in the 17th century) whereas the majority of them came in the 18th century and by that time the land along the coast was taken or too expensive, which is why they went to hills of West Virginia.

Or, it might be that he's just another American who does not own a passport

Posted by: Terry C | 07 December 2012 at 07:20 PM

Time to employ the condescending "oh, dear" with this even greater irrelevancy. Bringing up the US Virgin Islands and Guam was bad enough, since I've never heard of any unrest, uprisings or terrorism aimed at getting independence as a US territory. But this is remark is unexplainable other than maybe a chance to be snooty.

Elaine writes, "I had always sympathized with the idea of a unified Ireland, which I suppose comes from the fact I only ever heard one side of the story, which was from some Irish acquaintances (but no, I am not Irish-American. I do like Irish music, but that's probably because I like American Bluegrass and Country, which share many similarities.) but Stephen's response to the guy with the very long name gave me something to think about."

How nice to hear of an open mind on the "Irish" question! You might be interested to know that to some extent Bluegrass music was introduced to America by Ulster settlers in the 18th century. In the USA these people were (and to some extent still are) called the Scotch-Irish (yes, Scotch not Scots!). Americans seemed to have more respect for our distinct identity than either the English or southern Irish. A quick Google will give you more information. In addition the dialect speech of Ulster and parts of the Appalachia area in the USA are remarkably similar to this day.

"It might be: a) Mark is Irish American, b) he does not believe the places you mention should remain American, or c) the places you mention are happy to remain American"

Posted by: Alan Thomas | 07 December 2012 at 09:43 AM

Well, exactly.
Anyway if the US Virgin Islands or Guam don't want to be part of the United States and Mark of Spokane ignores that fact, then Terry C. can lecture him on that, but since it was not relevant to the discussion and Mark of Spokane did not reveal any opinion on the US Virgin Islands, what we are left to believe is that Terry C wishes to lecture Mark of Spokane but doesn't wish to be lectured himself.

Whether or not the British deserve a lecture in this matter, I do not know. I had always sympathized with the idea of a unified Ireland, which I suppose comes from the fact I only ever heard one side of the story, which was from some Irish acquaintances (but no, I am not Irish-American. I do like Irish music, but that's probably because I like American Bluegrass and Country, which share many similarities.) but Stephen's response to the guy with the very long name gave me something to think about.

@ Alan Thomas
Oh dear Alan Thomas lecturing anyone, on nothing matters.
Yes Irish Americans do exist. They played a big part in supplying the IRA. An have a distorted view of the troubles.
Then we have Irish Americans that don't. And Irish Americans that have no views whatsoever . Alan O Thomas's to give them a generic source.

"When I read comments here and on the main DM site by UKIP supporters they often sound unrealistic..."

That's one of the most accurate (and generous!) comments from a self-confessed UKIP voter I can recall reading.
It is one thing to stand on the touchline 'shouting' ones views, it a a very different matter for those in government to make a in/out decision concerning EU membership when the outcome is far from clear. If it was all so simple, why do so few polititions (and indeed, national newspapers) refrain from joining in the UKIP 'shouting'? Could it be that such a move would be a huge gamble - with only the government of the day getting a terminal kicking if it all goes wrong? Yes, I've heard all the usual shouts of 'cos they're traitors, all on the same gravy-train', but as it won't be UKIP in government, and taking the kicking, they clearly feel free to shout all sorts of fevered nonsense.
My views on the inner-circle of the party? A running pantomine of lost egotists who usually disappear soon after opening their mouths.

John Main-I also disagree,mob rule somtimes worked in Roman times,it certainly worked in France in 1789,aswell as the Philipines 26 years ago and only last year in Tunis and Cairo.
The only way to bring about real change is for millions to gather loudly in one area.
The english way of shaking ones head and saying-well what can we do- will never achieve change.

Robert Kee's history of Ireland, as far as I remember, made a lot of the supposed lack of unification of the country in the past. I sometimes wonder what his motivation was for choosing this argument. I have also heard people here in Ireland (not Unionists) voice their admiration for this work and the same thought crossed my mind.

I also don't want to get into an interminable debate. I just find that in general southern Irish people haven't a notion about the wishes, outlook or history of Ulster Protestants.

For instance I don't particularly care about Strongbow (a Welsh-Norman knight?); he seems to be invoked by Irish nationalists so they can harp on about 800 years of oppression. You forget that the Gaels too were invaders of Ireland, should their descendants also be stripped of their identity or expelled?

Ulster Protestants instead look to the long history (pre-dating the Gaels) of settlement and connection between Ulster and Britain (specifically Scotland). Furthermore historians agree that Ulster was a severely underpopulated province throughout the late middle ages (when settlement from highland Scotland was prevalent) and that many of the 17th century Lowland Scots settlers settled peacefully on unexploited land before, during and after the Crown's organised "Plantation". Their descendants have every right to remain in Ulster and retain their British identity, as do the many descendants of Gaelic Roman Catholics who also want to remain British.

As the liberal Ulster poet John Hewitt said,

"This is my country; my grandfather came here,
and raised his walls and fenced the tangled waste
and gave his years and strength into the earth."

But even had the British state fully incorporated the six northern counties of Ireland into Britain, it may still have solved very little of what was to come. What would Britain have done had the Troubles still broken out in 1969 despite a more egalitarian situation for Catholics under the protective umbrella of Westminster? The hope would have been that Catholic Nationalists would simply have been pacified in such cirumstances but this is to ignore the historical grieviances and cultural differences between the settlers and the indigenous population. Surely Britain would have had to further repartition the province by ceding Fermanagh, Tyrone, Derry and south Armagh to the Republic.

Peter,
Another place where you can find a trace of the brief King is in my home town of Builth Wells in Mid-Wales where you can find Edward VIII's cypher above the old post office door: [CLICK CONTRIBUTOR'S NAME FOR LINK]

I do enjoy your articles and whilst not always agreeing with the analysis I find that they make me think much more than many other blogs I read. One thing I think you fail to mention and something I would be interested to have read something about is your thoughts on Wales during this "defeat of unionism". If the polls are to be believed then about 90% of the Welsh are unionists, and despite not thinking of myself as a unionist (more of a strong devolutionist/Welsh patriot I guess you could say) this seems like a strong endorsement of the union to me. Indeed Carwyn Jones the Welsh First Minister has tried to add a Welsh voice to this constitutional debate only to be largely ignored by most of the press.

I think there could be some hope for a future union if people with entrenched positions on both sides were willing to compromise. It was the inflexibility of the British which forced most of Ireland out of the Union in the first place. We could if we wanted to avoid that this time if we really wanted to. Although I believe if we carry on the way we are we will just slowly drift further apart.

But isn't the British occupation of northern Ireland simply the last spot of Empire waiting to be left behind?.........My advice is just to cut it lose -- let it go, and move on to a post-colonial future.
Posted by: Mark in Spokane | 05 December 2012 at 08:51 PM

Oh dear, an American lecturing us on colonial matters!
My guess is that the USA will still occupy the colonies of Guam and the US Virgin Islands long after Northern Ireland 'is cut lose' to the Republic of Ireland

I have no wish to get into an acrimonious debate with Stephen, who is entitled to his opinions. I simply can't agree with them. To say that "Ireland was never a united independent country before being brought under British rule" is anachronistic. You may as well say ancient Greece was not ancient Greece because it was divided into warring city-states. England was England even when Mercia, Wessex and Northumbria were beating the living daylights out of each other. Besides, Ireland had achieved a High Kingship at least by the time of Brian Boru, more than a century before Strongbow.

The comparison with the Norman invasion of England fails, I think, because the Irish people never accepted English rule in the way the English accepted the Norman overlordship. Nor did the two cultures merge in the same way.

None of this, of course, gives the slightest justification to the vile and disgusting murder campaign of the IRA. I am sure I detest Sinn Fein more than any Ulster unionist.

Another fine piece of thought provoking journalism. I must confess, being a great fan of your late brother's writing (although not agreeing with all of it by any means), I have tended to dismiss your own writing as not being worthy of investigation. How very wrong I was and how very happy I am to find this out, somewhat late in the day.

I'm ashamed to say that I based my opinion on you upon the rantings of others in the gutter press (my fault entirely for reading it), and on your less user friendly persona, compared to that of your more affable late brother. I did, curiously, always enjoy your Mail on Sunday column and it was this paradox that drove me to delve further.

What delights I have found since! My Xmas present to myself will be to purchase your complete published works. I do wish more people would open their eyes although I'm hardly in a position to preach given my own rather pathetic previous stance.

Incidentally, Ebay is awash with "Observer's books of" so you could easily replace your lost collection. Meantime, keep up the excellent work.

"Flying the Red, White and Blue from a civic building every day of the year seems like an American thing to do, anyway."

This is very true. The Americans fly their flag all over the place all the time. They're everywhere. They are always on sale in the supermarkets. In the run-up to July 4th you can't move for flags.

The flag-flying psychology is perffectly simple. Those countries lacking in indentity confidence and unsure of who they really are, or want to be, fly a lot of flags. Those countries sure of themselves and brimming with national confidence don't fly flags. At one time virtually never seen, you now see a lot of flags in Britain. One guy has one on a pole in his front garden near me. And increasingly you see the George Cross. Britain, in other words, is losing confidence. When you see a flag in every garden you'll know we've completely lost it.

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